When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places on Earth where water is in its solid form, frozen into ice or snow. Read more ...

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About This Site

All About Arctic Climatology and Meteorology was designed especially for educators and students up through the 12th grade. If you have questions about the site's content or about frozen ground, please contact us. We also appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Use of Materials

You may use all information and resources on this site free of charge for educational purposes. Unless otherwise specified, you may also use any images found on this site. Please credit "NSIDC" when using images from this site. When you use information from All About Arctic Climatology and Meteorology, please use the following citation:

National Snow and Ice Data Center. All About Arctic Climatology and Meteorology. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/.

Site Credits

A majority of the material on this site was first published in 2000 as a primer within the Environment Working Group's (EWG) Arctic Meteorology and Climate Atlas. The Atlas was the work of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), St. Petersburg, Russia, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In addition to the Primer, the full Atlas contains information on the history of Russian and Western research in the Arctic; important, previously unavailable data for polar research; and several Russian language scientific papers translated into English. The complete Arctic Meteorology and Climate Atlas is available for download from NSIDC.

The Atlas also contains a glossary of cryospheric terms. The terms, originally in Russian, were translated in 1999 for the Atlas by Nina A. Zaitseva, Ph.D. (Secretary for Science Division of Oceanology, Atmospheric Physics and Geography Russian Academy of Sciences)